


The Drowned - Mourning

by Nathaniel_Quietly



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-11
Updated: 2018-10-11
Packaged: 2019-07-29 17:08:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16268651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nathaniel_Quietly/pseuds/Nathaniel_Quietly
Summary: So for those who havent heard, October is here and we at DC Animated Adventures are teaming up with Nazario Designs to giveaway the complete Batman: The Animated Series on DVD! Chris will draw a villain a day and you just write a short 400-500 word story about that character and you're entered! That simple!Lance and I decided that we wanted to play along as well, even though we're not qualified to win (as we are putting on the contest). Here's my entry for today, the first of The Dark Knights: The Drowned. (Check outThe DCAA Facebookfor more information.)





	The Drowned - Mourning

She had no more tears. Sylvester had been dead for more than a year, and her grief was an ocean, deep and all encompassing. Her tears had joined its salty waters long ago. She had lost too much time mourning. 

The woman once known as Bryce Wayne had discovered that the dark sciences she had turned to once before--the science that changed her anatomy, that allowed her to mock the gills and the water manipulating talents of the fallen Atlanteans--was still of use to her. She had never really considered herself a geneticist, nor a biologist, but she had to admit she’d become something of an expert while reshaping her own form. In her experiments, she had found...something. A virus, a parasitic symbiote that took over the host’s DNA and overwrote it with aquatic sequence strings. It also left the host in an semi-comatose state; the body itself was manipulated by the parasite.

Bryce Wayne smiled. A creature of control she would herself command.

_Sylvester always complimented her smile. Raved about it. Said it was her best feature, that of all her best features, it was at the top._

The smile hardened, collapsed in on itself. Smiling was a pointless distraction. She continued with her work.

The vivisected woman laid out upon the table in her undersea Bat-Grotto (even in her rage, her quest for vengeance, she could not escape the old cliches) was called Vulka. She had once been Aquawoman’s most trusted advisor, and a key component of the Atlantean aristocracy. Now she was nothing more than a lab rat. The first of Bryce’s experiments on sentient creatures.

“I’d say this won’t hurt, but I don’t actually know if that’s true,” she said, her voice cold, analytical. The experiment writhed on the table, pulling at bonds that would never break, biting a gag that would never sunder. “Also, I don’t really care if it does, so...I’m probably not the person to ask.”

You’re so funny, Sylvester had told her. Your wit is so dry. I can’t keep up. Whenever I think I’ve got you cornered, you skewer me.

Bryce bit her lower lip and stopped talking. She needed to concentrate on the injection.

She pushed the needle tip carved of Nth metal into Vulka’s exposed organs. She admitted to herself that the alien metal was probably overboard; Atlanteans were tough, but she’d seen them run through with conventional Earthmade swords and spears. But she appreciated the symbolism of using the hardest metal in the known universe; besides, she wanted to be thorough.

_My little Bat, Sylvester had sighed. Always so thorough._

Bryce’s face contorted as she pushed the plunger down. These memories were a distraction, a needless complication. She blinked, took a wet breath of sea water, and focused on the task before her.

Only a moment passed before Vulka’s strangled shouts of anger turned to clotted shrieks of pain. Her legs, already pushed together by the binding on the table, flowed into one another, sealed together, and became one, in a kind of eel’s tail. Her eyes, hot with hate, suddenly lost their fixation, then began to glow ominously red. Her attempts at screams slowed, then stilled; her breath became regular, shuddering through her exposed lungs.

“I am speaking to the creature possessing the body before me,” Bryce said after another few heartbeats had passed. “Can you understand me?”

Slowly, working against the restraints on her head, the thing that had been Vulka nodded.

“Your host body is severely damaged. I can repair it, but I need your word that you will help me in my quest. Together, we can destroy all air-breathing life on this planet, and subjugate the rest to our rule. Will you aid me in this?”

After a tortuous moment, the creature nodded again.

“You are the first,” Bryce said. “The general that will lead an army of your kind. I will give you this world. My...Dead Water.”

_You’re a natural leader, babe, Sylvester said. Hell, I’d follow you anywhere._

She had no more tears. Her grief was an ocean. And if the ocean was a few drops heavier now, what of it?


End file.
